Other editions of book Phil, the Fiddler

If you’ve ever used the phrase “rags to riches,” you owe that to Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832-1899), who popularized the idea through his fictional writings that also served as a theme for the way America viewed itself as a country. Alger’s works about poor boys rising to better living conditions through hard work, determination, courage, honesty, and morals was popular with both adults and younger readers. Alger’s writings happened to correspond with America’s Gilded Age, a time of increasing prosperity in a nation rebuilding from the Civil War. His lifelong theme of rags to riches continued to gain popularity but has gradually lessened since the 1920s. Still, readers today often come across Ragged Dick and stories like it in school.

Horatio Alger wrote 135 dime novels in the latter part of the 19th century. His stories were rags to riches stories illustrating how down-and-out boys might be able to achieve the American Dream. Alger's stories empathize the need for hard work and honesty as a way to get ahead. Phil, the Fiddler is the story of a 12-year-old boy from Southern Italy who is enslaved and forced to work in America as a street musician. He escapes his cruel master and meets a kind doctor and his wife.

Rather twee and worthy tale of a young Italin boy sold to a US "padrone" and forced to earn his keep by playing the fiddle on the streets of New York for money. The boy himself is full of life and the characters he encounters are nicely drawn, just skim over the "woe for the poor beggars" asides and the rather dated view of foreign climes. Sweet and engaging all the same.